"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Bitter Medicine

Samuel Johnson, Sermon XV:

To consider the shortness, or misery, of life, is not an employment to which the mind recurs for solace or diversion; or to which it is invited by any hope of immediate delight. It is one of those intellectual medicines, of which the nauseous essence often obstructs the benefit, and which the fastidiousness of nature prompts us to refuse. But we are told by Solomon, that there is "a time not only to laugh, but a time to weep;" and that it is good sometimes to enter into the house "of mourning." Many things which are not pleasant may be salutary; and among them is the just estimate of human life, which may be made by all with advantage, though by few, very few, with delight.